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[This is a newspaper clipping]

Chronicles Decline Of Maine Shipping

[Photograph] Drawing by Marcel Maurel

Rachel Field Her "Time Out of Mind" lavishes affection on the Maine coast.

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Book by other writers come to mind [illegible] one reads Rachel Field's poignant story of the decline of Maine's most picturesque industry, shipping.

"Time Out of Mind" (MacMillan) has in it the same despairing realization of change that marked Isabel Carter's "Shipmates" and Mary Ellen Chase's "Mary Peters." In it, too is a character who must have stepped right out of the pages of Dickens' "Bleak House," for Major Fortune is exactly like the hard-hearted father of the first part of the earlier novelist's book. But the aim of the author is similar to that of Robert P. Tristram Coffin, who in his last novel, "Lost Paradise," told of a beautiful State and the effect upon him of its unchanging charm. It is her diurnal appreciation of the Maine coast, regardless of season, that gives "Time Out of Mind" its continued flush of beauty.

Kate came to Fortune's Folly at the age of 10 and straightway fell in love with the "strange brightness" of the gulls' breasts and wings, the smell of wild strawberries in late June, the wedges of geese flying South, the gleam of Wale Back Light, the restless beauty of the sea—in short, Maine.

Fortune's Folly, one of many luxurious homes built by sea captains, was owned by the Major. A hard man was Major Fortune in his dealings with men and women, but in matters pertaining to sailing ships he was sentimental. Although the age of steam had long since dawned and the Atlantic cable long been laid, he still persisted in facing toward the 1850s, the age of the great clippers, the great whalers. His daughter, Rissa, he understood, but his son, Nat, he did not. The hard and fast rule was that the sea was worthy of a man's best efforts, piano-playing fit only for women. Locking up the piano, however, did not keep tunes from running in the boy's head. Sending him off to sea only served to make greater his triumph when he played a sea symphony before a hushed audience in a great city.

Circumstances forced Kate to remain in the big house while Nat reached the heights of success and Rissa married. More and more tourists were visiting Maine and Kate's suitor, Jake, saw gold in clams, home-grown produce and the great pines. The woodsmen came and destroyed a wealth of beauty. Cheaply constructed cottages appeared on the headlands. The Major shut himself up in his house and died there in despair. When Nat, broken in spirit after an ill-considered marriage, came home, Kate gave up her future and threw away her reputation in his behalf. Spinsterhood beckoned, but she was content.

"Time Out Of Mind" is stereotyped in its mechanics. So far as plot goes, the story has been written several times before. The author overdraws the characters of Rissa and the Major and leaves several questions unanswered. But regardless of mistakes in technique and occasional triteness, "Time Out Of Mind" ranks high among the books written about Maine. The swell of a real sea and the sturdiness of a race are in its pages, bringing it to life.